[UPDATED] The joke that Jimmy Kimmel didn’t tell at the WHCA dinner

“Newt Gingrich’s campaign is so dead Mitt Romney wants to baptize it and Rick Santorum wants to put it in a jar and show it to his kids.”

Jimmy Kimmel discussed this joke he decided not to tell at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner during an appearance this week on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM show. The transcript:

STERN: Does anyone go over your material first — anyone from the president’s organization or anything?

KIMMEL: No. Nobody even hinted at asking to see my material.

STERN: Were there jokes you left out because you felt they were too harsh about the president?

KIMMEL: Yeah, there were. Yeah. I mean, you know…

STERN: You wouldn’t have felt comfortable delivering it because it would have been over the top?

KIMMEL: Like, I decided right off the bat that the N word was out.

STERN: You did, that’s not like you. You use the N word every night in your monologue at least twice. [Both laugh]

KIMMEL: I had some jokes about — like Rick Santorum. I said something like — well, I didn’t say it, but: Newt Gingrich’s campaign is so dead Mitt Romney wants to baptize it and Rick Santorum wants to put it in a jar and show it to his kids.

STERN: You didn’t want any abortion jokes?

KIMMEL: People went like, uh-oh. I ran it by people who go to this thing.

STERN: Who do you run it by?

KIMMEL: There’s a guy named Jake Tapper at ABC News, I ran jokes by him. He’s been there a lot of times. There are a few other people — reporters.

“I tried to help Jimmy with the temperature of the room. And yes, I thought that joke would cause the room to turn against him, perhaps even causing a stampede, with the Hilton getting in on the tar and feather concession. Seeking to spare him a Rich Little-like reception, I offered my suggestions–such as they are–as to which jokes might bomb.”